After two decades of impressive growth, the automobile sector's performance has not been encouraging after 2006-07, but its growth turned modestly positive last fiscal, touching a domestic turnover of Rs 2.19 lakh crore, the Economic Survey said today.
Although auto industry production grew at a CAGR of 11.5 per cent over the last five years, in 2007-08 it fell into negative territory (-2.3 per cent), after witnessing a high growth rate of 13.6 per cent in 2006-07.
"However, in 2008-09, the industry has witnessed a modest growth of three per cent," the pre-Budget Economic Survey, tabled in Parliament, noted.
But, the utility and commercial vehicle segment remained an area of concern with negative growth rates of (-)11.9 per cent and (-)24 per cent, respectively.
The domestic turnover of the sector in 2008-09 was about Rs 2,18,996 crore, while exports totalled Rs 31,782 crore. Taken together, domestic as well as export figures, the total size of India's auto industry was Rs 2,50,778 crore during that fiscal.
"The turnover and the exports of the automobile vehicle industry in 2008-09 were at Rs 1,42,646 crore and Rs 16,782 crore," the Survey said.
On the other hand, the domestic turnover of the auto components industry was Rs 76,320 crore, while exports garnered Rs 15,000 crore in 2008-09.
Noting that the auto industry employs 10.5 million people, directly as well as indirectly, the Survey said that the sector has "a strong multiplier effect on the economy due to its deep forward and backward linkages with several key segments of the economy".